Birth of a Collection publication

Louvre Abu Dhabi unveils Birth of a Collection (co-published with art publisher, Skira), a landmark publication celebrating the museum's remarkable journey over the past decade and tracing the transformation of an ambitious cultural vision into one of the world's most distinctive universal collections, while reflecting Abu Dhabi's emergence as a global centre for cultural exchange, creativity and dialogue.

Bringing together the voices of 42 leading curators, historians and scholars, the volume reflects the museum’s growing role as a global platform for dialogue between civilisations, as told through an expanding collection that now spans millennia, geographies and artistic traditions.

Edited by Dr. Guilhem André, Director of Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management at Louvre Abu Dhabi, Birth of a Collection brings together 240 selected objects explored in illustrated essays that articulate the museum’s founding vision: a universal museum where the history of human creativity unfolds as a continuous story of exchange through dialogue between objects from major civilisations.

Since opening in 2017, the museum’s collection has expanded significantly, growing from around 600 artworks to more than 6,000 today. Nearly two-thirds of the objects on display in Louvre Abu Dhabi’s permanent galleries now belong to the museum’s own collection. Reflecting its ever-strengthening international profile, Louvre Abu Dhabi also lends works from its collection to leading institutions worldwide, including French museums such as Musée du Louvre, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Guimet – National Museum of Asian Arts and Musée d’Orsay, as well as The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi, Art Jameel in Dubai and the National Museum of Oman, among others.

Birth of a Collection is structured around the museum's four chronological worlds: Ancient World, Medieval World, Early Modern World, and Modern and Contemporary World. Each world is framed not as a sequence of isolated traditions but as a web of exchange. It presents and explores the ancient world as parallel civilisations shaped by shared ideas and practices; the medieval period’s foundations of faith and scholarship; early modernity as an intensification of contact, exchange and progress; and the modern era as re-composition, where Hokusai, Picasso and Kandinsky read as answers to the same enduring questions.

Birth of a Collection follows Birth of a Museum, published in 2013, which marked the inception of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s founding collection and articulated its vision as the first universal museum in the Arab world. Where the earlier publication captured an institution in formation, this new book speaks to realisation; a museum firmly established on the global stage, with its founding thesis having evolved into an institutional reality anchored in long-term vision, scholarship and practice.

Among the works examined are a bronze Winged dragon (dated 475–221 BCE), an ancient rendition of one of the most iconic creatures in Chinese art and a masterpiece of sculptural and aesthetic quality; Male praying figure (dated 2400–2300 BCE), a remarkable statue of a standing worshipper offering insight into the Sumerians’ religious beliefs and rituals; a Monumental lion (dated 1100–1200), among the most important Islamic works of the Mediterranean region, which likely functioned as an acoustic automaton; and Folding screens with maps of Japan and the World (around 1690), indicative of the global circulation of knowledge.

Birth of a Collection is published in Arabic, English and French, reflecting Louvre Abu Dhabi's distinctive trilingual publishing mandate. Through this approach, Louvre Abu Dhabi is among the first museums in the UAE to document and publish art history and museum studies of this scope and ambition in Arabic, reinforcing its role in advancing scholarship in and from the region.

Produced in collaboration with leading global partners, Louvre Abu Dhabi’s publication programme reflects a sustained commitment to intellectual excellence and engagement with readers worldwide. Birth of a Collection is available to purchase at the Louvre Abu Dhabi boutique.